The Air We Breathe: Why Indianapolis Needs Trees More Than Ever

By: Jeremy Kranowitz

As a parent, I worry about the health and well-being of my children. All parents do. The recent news about air quality in Indiana has me worried about my kids, and about yours. As the President and CEO of Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIB), I am also writing with a message of some hope for the future.

As a young child, I suffered from severe asthma attacks on days when the air quality was poor. My dreams of one day becoming a soccer superstar were dashed by the pollution drifting over the fields from upwind smokestacks (and also perhaps because I lacked the talent). That knowledge that air pollution was responsible for harming the health of kids like me was formative, and led to my career working to make the environment better for everyone.

The hard truth arrived a few weeks ago. The American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2026 report ranks the greater Indianapolis metropolitan area — including Marion County and the surrounding counties — on their list of the “WORST 25,” meaning we are among the most polluted out of over 200 metro areas in the country.

On our report card, we got a failing grade – an F – for exposure to particle pollution, which is microscopic soot that evades our bodies’ natural defenses, burrows deep into our lungs, where they then contribute to asthma attacks, heart attacks, lung cancer, and strokes. That is the air our kids walk to school in. It’s especially bad for babies with developing lungs.

Less than a year ago, I wrote on the KIB blog about the state of Indianapolis’ tree canopy. This report reminded us why that work matters even more than I described.

I made the case in October that trees are important infrastructure: the kind that, like a sewer system or a road network, does the heavy lifting of keeping a city livable. This report shows what happens when that infrastructure is thin.

Here’s what trees actually do for the air we breathe. U.S. Forest Service research estimates that urban trees across the United States remove 711,000 metric tons of air pollution every year — a benefit valued at $3.8 billion annually. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finds that trees and vegetation can reduce peak summer temperatures by 2 to 9°F at the neighborhood scale, and that shaded surfaces can run 20 to 45°F cooler than unshaded asphalt and rooftops. On the worst August afternoons, when ozone climbs and asthma ER visits climb with it, the difference between a tree-lined street and a treeless one can be the difference between a manageable day and a dangerous one.

Trees are not just nice to look at. They are one of the most cost-effective forms of public-health infrastructure a city can invest in.

For 50 years, KIB and our partners have been building that infrastructure. In 2025 alone, we planted 3,491 trees across Indianapolis. That’s on top of the more than 50,000 trees KIB has planted in Indianapolis over the life of the organization. We are not slowing down, either.

The challenge isn’t evenly distributed. As I noted in October, some parts of Marion County — places like Geist and Eagle Creek — enjoy more than 60% tree coverage. Other neighborhoods, often the same ones carrying heavier health burdens, struggle with less than 10%. Tree equity is the principle that the cooling, cleaning, calming work of a healthy canopy should reach every Indianapolis resident, in every neighborhood.

None of this work happens alone. For decades, Indianapolis city leaders have valued the link between their goals for how Indianapolis looks and feels and KIB’s mission to help people and nature thrive. Based on those shared goals, KIB receives funding from the City of Indianapolis , directed through the City of Indianapolis – Department of Public Works (Indy DPW), to plant and steward green infrastructure in the public right-of-way. The U.S. Forest Service anchors our long-term canopy expansion. AES Indiana powers Project GreenSpace. Citizens Energy Group is a long-standing tree-planting partner to help clean our water and reduce flooding. American Forests provides the data and equity framework. Keep America Beautiful® connects us to a national network of community environmental work. Corporate partners across Indianapolis show up for days of service that put thousands of trees in the ground each year. And then there are the neighbors: block captains, Tree Tenders, the Youth Tree Team, and Saturday volunteers who show up with gloves and water bottles to plant something they may never sit under.

Air quality is a community problem. The good news is we already have a community-scale answer, and a community in motion to deliver it.

The ALA’s report is a wake-up call, not a verdict. One of the most effective things we can do as a city is keep planting and keep stewarding what’s already in the ground. Three ways to be part of that:

• Donate at kibi.org/donate — every dollar plants more trees and pays for the three years of watering, mulching, and pruning that help a tree survive.
• Volunteer at kibi.org/volunteer — planting seasons, cleanups, Adopt-A-Block, and Tree Tender trainings are all available.
• Request trees for your block, school, place of worship, or community organization at kibi.org/trees — we’ll bring them, plant them, and care for them.

The challenges are real, but so is our determination. With your help, we can keep building the kind of Indianapolis where every child — in every neighborhood, in every zip code — gets to breathe a little easier.

Let’s keep planting.

Categories: Air quality & health, News & Features, Partners, Trees and Native Habitats